Items tagged with Reviews

Back in the day (which, for you youngsters, is a scientific measurement of time reserved for anyone who used to walk to school during snowstorms, uphill, both ways), integrated audio solutions had trouble earning respect. Many enthusiasts considered a sound card an essential piece to the PC building puzzle. Depending on how far your PC gaming roots go back, you may recall fierce competition in the discrete audio space between AdLib and Sound Blaster, two heavy hitters that pretty much pioneered the category. While AdLib would eventually end up as a footnote in the history of PC audio, the Sound...Read more...

We've all heard the phrase "Go big or go home," but how about "Go wide or go home?" The latter is the message Lenovo is sending with its B750 All-in-One Desktop PC, which offers a spacious and brilliant 29-inch super-widescreen In-Plane Switching (IPS) display to play with. It has a Full HD 2560x1080 resolution, which works out to a 21:9 aspect ratio with copious horizontal screen estate to maneuver your documents and windows. It's also adept at watching movies, as the aspect ratio is very close to the true value of 64:27, allowing for little or no discernible black bars. Oddly enough, Lenovo...Read more...

We've all heard the phrase "Go big or go home," but how about "Go wide or go home?" The latter is the message Lenovo is sending with its B750 All-in-One Desktop PC, which offers a spacious and brilliant 29-inch super-widescreen In-Plane Switching (IPS) display to play with. It has a Full HD 2560x1080 resolution, which works out to a 21:9 aspect ratio with copious horizontal screen estate to maneuver your documents and windows. It's also adept at watching movies, as the aspect ratio is very close to the true value of 64:27, allowing for little or no discernible black bars. Oddly enough, Lenovo...Read more...

In case you didn't get the memo, the 4K Ultra HD revolution has begun. Services like YouTube and Netflix are already serving up 4K streams, while hardware makers like Dell are stepping to the plate with displays that can playback 4K video in all its native glory. The latter is what we have here for review -- a Dell UltraSharp UP3214Q monitor with a 31.5-inch IGZO panel. With its 3840x2160 resolution, there's a massive number of pixels to play with on the UP3214Q, especially for multitasking chores, content creators who routinely work with large images or videos, and power users in general. Even...Read more...

In case you didn't get the memo, the 4K Ultra HD revolution has begun. What's been remarkable about the ongoing transition from Full HD 1080p to 4K Ultra HD is that hardware makers and content creators didn't get stuck in a 'chicken and egg' scenario. Typically when new technology emerges, hardware makers wait for software developers to come out with content that can take advantage of the new capabilities, while software developers are reluctant to code for new hardware until there's a big enough userbase to justify the investment. In this case, we're talking about monitor manufactuerers and...Read more...

Dell's XPS line of laptops have always been about foregoing compromise in the pursuit of a premium mobile experience. The company's latest lineup of XPS 15 touch-enabled systems carry that tradition into a new era of computing, driven by Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system. These machines are anything but cookie cutter, and even if you're not a fan of the unified approach Microsoft took with Windows, there's more here than just a touch computing experience. Much more. To begin with, the real star of the show is the optional 15.6-inch Quad HD+ (3200x1800) display. Dell's the first system builder...Read more...

Dell's XPS line of laptops have always been about foregoing compromise in the pursuit of a premium mobile experience. The company's latest lineup of XPS 15 touch-enabled systems carry that tradition into a new era of computing, driven by Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system. These machines are anything but cookie cutter, and even if you're not a fan of the unified approach Microsoft took with Windows, there's more here than just a touch computing experience. Much more. To begin with, the real star of the show is the optional 15.6-inch Quad HD+ (3200x1800) display. Dell's the first system...Read more...

When Microsoft launched Windows 8, the company gambled on consumers welcoming touch on the desktop, just as they had on mobile handheld devices, namely tablets and smartphones. It remains to be seen if that gamble will pay off, but in the meantime, peripheral makers and other hardware partners have stepped up with products built to take advantage of Windows 8's touch friendly interface. That includes Dell, which sent us its 27-inch P2714T Touch Monitor to test drive. The P2714T brings support for 10 points of multi-touch input, so if you want to get up close and friendly with two hands, it won't...Read more...

When Microsoft launched Windows 8, the company gambled on consumers welcoming touch on the desktop, just as they had on mobile handheld devices, namely tablets and smartphones. It remains to be seen if that gamble will pay off, but in the meantime, peripheral makers and other hardware partners have stepped up with products built to take advantage of Windows 8's touch friendly interface. That includes Dell, which sent us its 27-inch P2714T Touch Monitor to test drive. The P2714T brings support for 10 points of multi-touch input, so if you want to get up close and friendly with two...Read more...

It's hard to believe there's a full fledged system packed inside Apple's slim and sexy iMac chassis. It was roughly a year ago when Apple revamped its all-in-one line, tasking the company's engineers to flatten the design as much as possible without sacrificing performance. What emerged was a sleek display measuring just 5mm at its edge with up to 40 percent less volume than the previous generation. It was such a radical design change that Apple had to abandon traditional welding methods in favor of a process called friction-stir welding, which combines friction-generated heat and pressure to force...Read more...

It's hard to believe there's a full fledged system packed inside Apple's slim and sexy iMac chassis. It was roughly a year ago when Apple revamped its all-in-one line, tasking the company's engineers to flatten the design as much as possible without sacrificing performance. What emerged was a sleek display measuring just 5mm at its edge with up to 40 percent less volume than the previous generation. It was such a radical design change that Apple had to abandon traditional welding methods in favor of a process called friction-stir welding, which combines friction-generated heat and pressure to force...Read more...

We have a confession to make (well, several actually, but all the rest date back to our college days, and some secrets are best left untold). Reviewing monitors isn't as fun as it once was. It's not that we've grown jaded over the years, but plain and simple, the monitor market has become stale, lacking the kind of 'gee-whiz' innovations that tend to excite us. Panel makers seemed to stopped pushing the envelope once they developed 30-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS) screens, and for the longest time, that's where the high-end has sector been stuck, as if caught in quicksand with no rope in sight,...Read more...

We have a confession to make (well, several actually, but all the rest date back to our college days, and some secrets are best left untold). Reviewing monitors isn't as fun as it once was. It's not that we've grown jaded over the years, but plain and simple, the monitor market has become stale, lacking the kind of 'gee-whiz' innovations that tend to excite us. Panel makers seemed to stopped pushing the envelope once they developed 30-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS) screens, and for the longest time, that's where the high-end has sector been stuck, as if caught in quicksand with no rope in sight,...Read more...

Intel's roll-out of their 4th generation Haswell-based Core series processors has been a little pokey, quite frankly, when you compare this launch to the deluge of products that hit the market when Ivy Bridge broke cover last year. Regardless, Apple always seems to have an inside track on Intel's latest technology and so, as it turns out, our first Haswell-powered notebook has finally arrived and it's none other than the Apple MacBook Air. The new MacBook Air for 2013 is virtually indistinguishable from the previous gen model, though if you'll look closely there actually two tiny pinholes...Read more...